


12 Dancing Boys

by JeanSouth



Series: fairytale au [2]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanSouth/pseuds/JeanSouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kagami gets an invite to dance for the king, he's excited. However, it doesn't turn out fine and dandy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	12 Dancing Boys

“The king invited me to dance,” Taiga burst in, dressed in his working clothes with a fine letter in hand. The letter looked to be written on costly vellum, with a seal of fine, dark red wax that had been broken to show dark, dark black ink on the inside. The writing was looping and scrawled, exceedingly neat but also frivolously ornate. Handpenned by the king to invite him to the palace, and lend his mind to eleven other dancers of his caliber to make the finest show ever seen for the king’s grandest birthday. Letter in hand, Taiga looked up to his father with the nicest eyes he could fathom, and just barely restrained himself from dropping to his knees and begging. “Please, let me go!”

And being a good father, who wanted nothing more than happiness for his sons, agreed after only little effort from Taiga. His big hands called the family together (or what remained of it, after Kouki’s decision to stay with the beast-prince that captivated his heart), and he explained the situation with only a minimal amount of occurances showing how upset he truly was to see another son fly the nest.

 

“Be safe,” He advised, with a solemn face when a royal carriage arrived not quite two weeks later. Taiga’s finest clothes were in his bags, and his favourite dancing shoes, along with mementos he didn’t think anyone knew he had. “The world isn’t as kind as the village, and you need to be vigilant.”

“Send me a princess home,” Shun chimed in, and in the background Ryou said nothing; merely watched him with eyes that held both sorrow he was going, and hope that he would find the best in life that it could possibly offer anyone.

“I’ll try!” Taiga called, and stepped into the awaiting carriage. On the long ride to the palace, that took six days and six nights on bumpy roads, he took the time to overcome the fear of leaving, and being on his own. The confinement made him restless to dance; despite his protests to stop for a moment the carriage drivers wouldn’t waste a minute. So when he arrived, and was finally allowed out, he practically danced to the gathering hall, and the eleven other men there to make the king’s birthday as spectacular as any king could hope to find with all the gold in his coffers.

They ranged from short to tall, and from pretty to merely handsome. He himself was one of the tallest, and one of the broadest besides. His dancing shoes were the biggest too, but the boys took to him like a brother, then showed him the plans they had.

“My name is Mibuchi Reo,” The eldest of them said; a pretty man with dark hair and a soft, lilting accent. “I’m from the kingdom nearby, and the youngest son of the king. The dance was my idea, I hope you’ll pardon my forwardness in calling for you. Your skills are known widely.”

Of course he took no offense, and showed it with a smile and a twirl, sweeping the stunned man into a slightly skewed rendition of a quick dance with many lifts. Around them laughter flowed easily until he stopped again, exhillerated to be moving again. Sitting still was the worst; he could think of no punishment more cruel.

So for days upon hours upon nights, they slaved away at steps in pairs of two and three whilst half of them were fitted for sleek, beautiful clothes to make their movements that much more elegant. With a wide range of men, every dance in existence seemed to come up, not even excluding lewd barroom dances that made Taiga blush to the very tips of his ears. Eventually they settled of a flowing, elegant mishmash of each of them, full of so many techniques at least each of them had to learn a slight. By the time the night of the feast came, they had their steps practised to perfection, their clothing fitted like a second skin, and anxiousness running through their veins.

“You’ll be quite alright,” Reo soothed him as they prepared to take to the large dais before the king. He knew Taiga hadn’t slept a wink in nervous excitement, but he was bursting with energy now. A simple nod from him sent the concerns away as their arrival was announced, and he thought of nothing but dance.

“Beautiful,” The king breathed what seemed like moments later, when they were done dancing and stood panting but proud. The praise made them stand slightly straighter, and elated Taiga until he felt like he was floating. Applause reigned across the hall until he thought he might go deaf from it until a single motion from the king cut them to silence. “From now on, you shan’t dance for a soul but me - not even eachother. You’ll await my calls in your tower, and I’ll feast my eyes on your fountain of youth.”

With another gestures, the guards around them escorted them to the highest room in the highest tower, and bolted it with seven bolts. Below them out of the window they could barely make out what was on the ground, but Koutarou (a wandering troubadour in search of a way to break the spells imprisoning his surly griffon lover) saw with his remarkable eyes that they were nothing but roses, full of sharp thorns.

Once left alone, they spilled out their misery - and anger.

“It’s not fair,” Taiga cried out, trying to wrench the door open so hard his muscles bulged under his skin. He tried until his hands bled with the effort, and Reo guided him to a bed that held the other boys that could no longer dance. Distraught feelings bubbled up inside him, and he buried his face in his bloodied hands. “It’s not fair at all.”

“I know,” Reo soothed, with his soft hands rubbing gentle patterns along the length of Taiga’s back. “It’s not much for now, but I can make our dreams feel as freedom. In our dreams, we might dance.”

And in their dreams, dance they did. In a world where the grass was green silk and the dew made of diamonds, with trees of polished bronze that bore fruit of ruby apples, and a castle made of shining silver, they danced - alone, together, or even with the air itself. And in their waking hours, they planned escape.

The king of course was not pleased to see the soles of their feet calloused as if they danced regardless, but he could find no evidence of their misadventures, and offered reward to the man who could. With added company their plans were more slowed; painfully so. There seemed no way out, but Taiga refused to give up.

-

“Your brother’s in quite some trouble,” Teppei explained, with his hands curled around a teacup that could no longer have hopes of being sentient. Rumours travelled quick; of dancing boys kept hostage by the king’s whims, and though resourceful himself, he had no way of changing it. His best bet was Kouki’s beast-prince, who’d lived long enough to know a great many kings and their whims, and was once quite as selfish as they were. “I come seeking advise from your paramour.”

The paramour himself was quite different from the last time Teppei had seen him; less fur for one, and much friendlier besides. He looked filled with strategies and thoughts for the moment, staring off out of a window with a beautiful mosaic. Dinner came and went while he thought, and when he spoke it was slowly.

“This king, I’d wager, never makes them dance,” He said eventually, and folded his hands together. Not a single rumor (and he’d sent out all his sources to find them) said a thing of the boys dancing, but more of ways to make them stop. Teppei shook his head, watching the smile quirk on Seijuurou’s face. “And these men he sends are strangers; they likely don’t see at all. There’s nothing for it but to sneak them out in a winter night, where they won’t be missed till morning.”

The plan seemed sound in theory, but in reality hit far too many snags.

“But they’re guarded day and night in their tower, with bolts on the door. It’s far too high for ladder or rope; they’d fall before they climb,” Teppei protested, realistic to the very end. His hopes of regaining his son made his heart swell with a cautious hope when Seijuurou shook his head, and motioned a negative.

“If the guards are dispatched, the bolts will unlock easily, and they’ll walk right out,” He explained, but didn’t bother to look affronted at the disbelieving look on Teppei’s face. “No guard is so good he can defend himself against a shadow.”

As if on queue, someone near the doorway cleared his throat. The man there was unremarkable, on par with the shortest of his sons, and dressed in mottled greys and blacks for sneaking around in the dark. Night, after all, was not black - it was merely not well-illuminated.

“Tetsuya will rescue them,” He was assured, and with no other options, he accepted graciously.

-

Tetsuya, in general, didn’t miss working as a spymaster for the arrogant prince Akashi. He’d been overly demanding, with too many enemies to track and too many threats to take care of. He’d been an all-around brat; unpleasant to work for and less pleasant to talk to by far.

For Seijuurou however (and Kouki more prominently), he didn’t quite mind so much. His skills were honed and brilliant, made for every situation possible, but it was few times he got to use them to help. He took the path to the king’s castle by horse, stopping to rest it only sparingly, and was nearly asleep in the saddle when he arrived in the city by day.

He rented lodgings and privacy with gold coins, food and ale in a very clean tankard with yet more, then slept his day away until dusk.

“I wish to solve the mystery of your dancing beauties,” Tetsuya offered himself to the king, with an air of confidence about him. He had to work at being seen and noticed as a man, and a being in general, but it worked. The king saw him and looked at him, and though he scoffed he did not dismiss him.

“You know the stipulations are three days to find their secret, and if you fail it’s your head on a pike, yes?” The king asked, with the air of a man who had never swung a blade to take a head in his life. At Tetsuya;s nod, he waved a guard to take him to the tower, and left him there with the dozen boys.

They milled about quietly, speaking to one another with muted voices that were a little too cheery for men who couldn’t practice their passion. As they climbed into their beds in pretty nightshirts made of white cotton and laced edges, he sought out the one he’d been introduced to as Taiga; his main goal in the endeavour.

He was loud and boisterous, with power in his every movement. He cheered up the younger ones who looked miserably towards Tetsuya and the window, as if they couldn’t pick between pitching themselves out of it or him. The boys all slept deep and did not wake even when he spoke out loud; their deep breathing was even in the way of true sleep, so he took the time to look and see.

Taiga’s posessions held things of little value in a monetary system, but were priceless in an emotional value. He kept no diaries, but a book filled with innocent, harmless puns that dented even the emotionless armour Tetsuya wore. By the time the sun rose, he felt like he knew him better.

“I feel closer to the mystery,” He told the guards come dawn, despite having no clue how the soles of their feet were covered in a dancefloor’s residue again. They watched him wearily. “I must research for the day; I’ll return come the evening. You might check on me at the inn if you must.”

Reluctantly they let him go, and he returned to sleep for the day. With a clear idea of a path in his mind, he made his way to the top of the tower, past a dozen guards at every landing. At the very top they greeted him with the airs of bored men. As they opened the door, their boredom was their downfall; in mere moments where they’d shaken Kuroko’s gloved hand, the sleeping poison had worked its magic, sending them to a deep sleep for hours to come. 

But the bolts were noisy, and a lazy spy was a dead spy. Slamming the door shut he bolted it before making quick work of the other guards. His lack of presence made it far too late for them to do anything when they noticed him, with his poisons and pressure points. He didn’t like to kill; he’d seen enough of that beforehand. When they all slept he crept back up, and opened the door to twelve lovely faces that looked at him in suspicion.

“Come,” He advised, but they balked and the pretty foreign prince stepped up as though to protect them from whatever trickery he brought. Instead of protesting, he leaned around to speak to Taiga. “Your brother bade me fetch you.”

Within a second his red eyes flew wide as he worked steadily to convince the other boys to follow Tetsuya.

On the way out some were noisy by accident, and swore their frustration quietly. It wasn’t worrying however; swapping bedrooms was a sport in any palace that would ever exist, and no one wished to see who was wandering the halls lest they be seen in return.

Once outside, he led them to the stables full of horses he’d rented just before the dusk. Without intention to return them, he’d left gold coin enough for the stable master to retire.

The treck back to Seijuuro’s castle was long and tedious, with complaining boys left and right until Reo shushed them. It was amusing to Tetsuya; after only a month or so, the young prince had taken to a role of long-suffering mother already. Once back to the castle, he sent missives to the families that needed them.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Reo said eventually, in the blue sitting room (decorated in blues and dark woods, with paintings of the ocean). “On behalf of my father, I’d like to reward you with anything in my power.”

The offer was generous, and only extended perhaps twice in a lifetime for any given royal. Riches of his own were within the tips of his fingers, but he assumed his emotionless mask for the prank he intended to pull.

“I would like Taiga,” He said, making Reo splutter in protest.

“That’s not within my power,” He started, but at the same moment, Taiga blurted out a loud yes, with a flush on his cheeks but a stubborn look on his face. Within three steps he was at the settee Tetusya was seated on.

“Yes,” He said again, but quieter, and leaned in to take an inexperienced, clumsy kiss that was still amazing for its passion. Sometimes things worked out rather well for Tetsuya, too.


End file.
